Tag Archives: mage

Mikael Larkens suppressed a frown. He was pretty sure Fen’s only reason for becoming a mage was one of pure laziness. Why walk somewhere, when it was easy to teleport? Of course, he could have just teleported the books in the same manner, but asking someone else to do it was easier than casting a spell.

“Sure, I was about to go down anyway.”

“Thanks Lark.”

He picked up the books and started his way down the spiraling staircase to the lower part of the mage tower. He’d been called Lark since he started going to school. There were three Mikaels in his first year as a young lad. The teacher had started out by calling all three by their full names, but within a month, she was calling them only by their last names. The fellow students shortened it even more to Lark, and it stuck. He didn’t mind, as long as no one assumed he could sing.

He reached the ground floor of the tower, and left the books on the table to be sorted and put away. He had been coming to study every day for the past few months, but was unable to find the books he needed to progress in his studies. He was starting to think he’d have to turn to other sources. He’d already started looking into it, though finding people willing to go off the beaten path to look for books was proving difficult. He had started dressing down and going to questionable bars looking for the right people, but hadn’t found anyone yet.

He’d keep looking. He had to until he found the information he needed.

Everything at the school is going well. I’m really glad to be teaching again too. I’m not trying to rush them through their work, but there is a certain amount of material I wanted to cover this semester, and I know there won’t be time for it all. Maybe I can work it into the plans for next semester.

If I could, I’d take them with me to other timelines and just teach them there. I’ve been going for two weeks at a time, but I’m only gone a few seconds here. That would be a great way to cram a couple of months worth of material into a just a few weeks. I don’t think I’m allowed to do that though.

I have more official stuff to fill out for that art school in Silvermoon. They want to know everything! The only thing that might not check out is the general studies teacher. I guess Raleth asked me the night of the mask party, but I had a little much to drink then. He brought Lali with him. I think it was her first time here. Anyway, I agreed to hire her as the teacher. I don’t know how much she knows about sin’dorei history or math or anything, but Raleth assured me that she can do it. I suppose I can ask my students to help. They’re already helping Vaildor.

I need to remember to ask the Confessor if he knows of any other young people at any of the other estates in the area. The general education classes should be free, so everyone from the area is welcome to enroll. I’ve filled out the papers necessary for the Spire to get Silvermoon to help fund it. I did get a letter back saying that they’re pleased with someone opening a school in the Ghostlands, and they’re planning to expedite my request. I think that’s a good sign!

On a completely unrelated matter, no one believes me that eggs hatch into chickens. I’m going to make sure Lali teaches basic biology. Everyone should know that!

The room for the general classes is coming along well. Unfortunately, the new hallway to it is next to my study. They had to take out the wall where the side door is, and it’s a bit chilly now. Okay, more than a bit. It’s freezing! Anyway, my office gets cold a lot. Des suggested I could ask Aeramin for his hot rocks. I didn’t laugh, but I think he would if I asked him that. Terellion wants to bring me tea. I don’t want him to really. It’s my study and it’s the only place I can work, and if he starts bringing me tea in there, then maybe he’s going to want to stay in there, and I’m so weak around him.

I’ve been trying to go to bed earlier than him, and waking up earlier. A lot of times I do succeed. I know I have to talk to him about it. I just keep feeling worse and worse about it. I just don’t know what to say though. I can’t make him stay with me if he doesn’t want to stay. I keep trying to forget that, and try to appreciate that he’s here now, but it gnaws at the back of my mind constantly. I can’t forget that he doesn’t want to make a commitment to stay together, and it hurts. It hurts when I see him, or when I think of him. It hurts all the time.

That’s why I’ve been fishing a lot. I know it’s a big advantage for me to be able to just go off for two weeks and then return to the same point I was when I left. I think Tik is starting to question what we’re going to do with all the fish. A couple of times I was gone longer than two weeks, but I’m worried that Renner won’t let me and will stop teaching me if I do that a lot. I’m surprised he hasn’t said anything about the frequency. I’m not supposed to spend a lot of time in one place, but he never said anything about restrictions on how often I could go, so I guess it must be okay.

Anyway, I go and I think about it, and I think I’m okay with it all again. Then I come back and it starts all over again the moment I see him. I keep telling myself to enjoy that he’s here, and well, things are very enjoyable with him, but then I feel bad after. That’s when I feel the worst. Like why do we do that if he isn’t going to stay. Oh, but then he says he isn’t leaving. I know he’s young, but what does that have to do with marriage? Does he think he’s too young, and he’ll change his mind when he’s older? That hurts too.

I knew it was a mistake. I should have never looked at him in the first place. He’s younger than some of my students. He’s too young to know what he wants, and I love him too much to send him away.

Hethurin Fairsong walked along the long hallways of Fairsong Academy. He hated his new wards, which allowed magic only in certain rooms. It meant he couldn’t teleport anywhere! However, Maerista’s parents had not been very accepting of his idea that she should be old enough to make decisions herself, and he felt it was best to keep the wards up for the time being, even if it meant walking.

He stopped at a door near the end of the hallway and knocked. He heard a voice call out from within, “Come in.” Good, he wasn’t too late. Aeramin had a tendency to leave early at times, as he preferred to work in the library in Shattrath than at the school. He opened the door, and stepped inside the room, closing the door behind himself as the elf sitting at the desk looked up. “Hello, Hethurin.”

“Hi. Can we talk?”

Aeramin pulled the papers in front of him together and stacked them neatly off to the side. “Sure. What is it?”

Hethurin sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. “I was wondering about marriage. Oh, don’t tell Ter I said anything, okay?”

“Okay. What do you think I know about marriage? I’ve never been married.”

“Oh, well I thought maybe you knew who was supposed to ask.” Hethurin frowned. Maybe Aeramin wouldn’t know.

“Probably the one with enough money to buy everything for the wedding.”

“But I wear robes.”

“Lots of guys wear robes.”

Hethurin frowned again, “But I want him to ask, and I want it to be his idea.”

“Then wait.”

“How long?”

Aeramin shrugged.

“What if he never asks?”

“Then he doesn’t want to get married.”

“But I do.”

“Then ask him.”

“I can’t ask him!” Hethurin exclaimed. Aeramin wasn’t being much help at all.

“Why not?”

“Because I want him to ask.”

“And what if he’s saying the same thing to himself right now? Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but because he works here and you own everything, he probably sees you as being the one who should ask. If he asks, it’ll look like he’s just in it for the money and the easy lifestyle. That’s if he’s even thinking about it. He’s a bit young to be thinking about marriage.”

Hethurin rolled his eyes, “He’s old enough. There’s less of an age gap between him and me than there was between us.”

Aeramin’s ear twitched, “Age difference has nothing to do with it. I’m just saying he’s young. Yes, he’s old enough, but he’s young. I think you should bring it up with him and see if he’s open to it.”

“But then it’s my idea, not his.”

Aeramin raised a brow, “It is, isn’t it?”

Hethurin frowned thoughtfully, “I guess it kind of is, but I’d like him to think about it too.”

“Then talk to him about it.”

Hethurin thought about it for a moment before nodding silently. He started to get up.

“Wait, I was kind of hoping to talk to you too.”

“Oh?” Hethurin sat back down.

“Yeah, I was hoping you might have a guest room free starting this weekend.”

“There should be. I’ll make sure Tik has it ready for you. Will Imralion be coming too?”

“It might just be Imralion.”

Hethurin raised a brow, “Where will you be?”

“That depends on him. I have to tell him something he’s not going to be happy about. I want him to be near his sister, and there’s the Confessor in town if he needs to talk. I know Tik will make sure he eats, and if he needs to talk about how awful I am behind my back, I have two ex-boyfriends in the area who can probably nod and agree.”

“Two?”

“Orledin, the death knight. I knew him when he was alive and just a baker. Anyway, I’ll be in town staying with my father until Im’s ready to see me. If he wants to see me.”

“It sounds pretty bad. What did you do?”

“That’s something I have to talk to him about, not you. You’ll find out eventually. Probably this weekend.”

Hethurin frowned. It must be something really horrible if Aeramin expected Imralion wouldn’t want him around. “I’ll let Tik know to have the room ready. I’ll ask Terellion to make extra cake this weekend too.”

“Thank you.” Aeramin picked up his papers and put them away in his satchel. “I suppose I should get home and let Im know of the plan to visit this weekend. I’ll be telling him what happened after we arrive so he’ll have all the support he needs. Could I bother you for a portal to Shattrath? Yours are better than mine.”

Hethurin nodded. He could make them in this room as he had left it out of the warding so that Raleth and Aeramin could still arrive without having to arrive outside. He got up and started casting the spell.

Lena said the words to conjure the vision around herself and Zarah. A future Ghostlands slowly came into focus. Zarah had warned her that her subject today was Vaildor. The timelines were still adjusting to his presence, and the visions may be foggier than usual. While it did take a little longer to focus, when it finally did, this one was clear. The young man stood on an outdoor terrace at an easel. Lena guessed that they were in Tranquillien, and that they were at the boy’s home. He painted the scene of the village as he saw it from where he stood.

“This is the most likely future for him as things are now. With him, things can change very rapidly still. There is another possible future that switches frequently with this one.” Zarah commented as Lena walked closer to study the details of the painting in progress. “This one changes often. Sometimes he’s painting here, sometimes he’s inside or in Silvermoon, but he paints. The subject of his painting changes just as often.”

“What is he doing in the other possible future?”

“You memorized the spells I gave you. Cast the second one. It will take us to his second most likely possibility.”

Lena looked at the painting once more. The young elf meticulously continued adding more details. He was very good. She smiled and cast the spell.

It took longer than usual as the vision faded and a new one replaced it. They were in a room, the walls were an off-white and the cabinets were as well. Again, it seemed quite clear despite the fact it took longer to appear. Vaildor knelt next to a female elf. They both observed a wound on a third elf’s leg. The female was explaining what she was doing as she cleaned and dressed the wound.

Lena scrunched her nose up slightly. She didn’t like the sight of blood much. “He’s a healer?”

“He’s learning.”

“I see. It’s quite a bit different from painting.”

Zarah smiled, “They both require attention to detail. He seems good at that.”

“Can we try another?” Lena asked, looking away from the wounded leg.

Zarah nodded.

Lena wasted no time casting the next spell. The room faded as another vision appeared. This one did seem more muddled as it slowly came into focus. It was as if she were watching something far away, though it was right in front of her. Though things never fully became clear, and the sound was muffled, she knew where it was as she had been here before in a vision. Fairsong Academy.

“I can’t make out the faces, but that looks like him there.” Lena pointed to one of the students.

“That’s him. This is an unlikely possibility, but it still could happen. It is a lot less likely now that he’s moved to the town.”

“So it would have been clearer if we visited before he moved?”

Zarah nodded silently.

“But it’s still not completely eliminated as a possibility.”

“Correct.”

Lena nodded, still concentrating on the foggy vision. It wasn’t going to clear up. “Can we do one more?”

Zarah nodded.

Lena cast the spell. There was no waiting this time. A vision set at a camp in a forest snapped into focus. Zarah took a step back. Lena did as well upon seeing who the campers were. She knew it was him before Zarah told her, not simply by the way Zarah had reacted, but also by the way his head had snapped towards them the moment the vision had appeared. There was little likelihood of it being Hethurin.

Lena glanced at Zarah again, and whispered, “How is he talking to us? It’s supposed to just be a vision.”

Zarah was silent.

“Oh, I see! You’re not even fully trained yet! Zaradormi, my dear, you are slipping. No, wait. I know what’s wrong. You’re in the past. This is Lena, isn’t it. Poor thing didn’t deserve what you led her into. So sorry about that. My condolences about what happened to Renzdormu as well.” Sanimir looked directly at Zarah. “I suggest you leave my family alone. We wouldn’t want any further accidents.” He smiled smugly as he began to cast a spell.

“No!” Zarah exclaimed, but it was too late. The vision disappeared. “I think I almost had it. We could have gotten him, but I suppose it’s for the best. We wouldn’t want to let him run loose for 70 years. It’s much preferable to catch him before that.”

Lena frowned, “The vision was very clear. Is there a high likelihood of it happening?”

“He’s done enough. I won’t let him do more. We need to warn the others of what we’ve seen.”

I took Des fishing with me this morning and spoke to her about the importance of not driving Renner crazy. I caught some fish too. I hope she was listening. We talked some about the spells and stuff as well. She’s doing well but hasn’t quite got the hang of casting both the invisibility on herself and on someone else. It does have the added benefit of making her tired, so she sleeps longer and bothers Renner less.

Day 37:

Success! Des managed both invisibilities at once! It was only for a few seconds though. We’ll have to work on it a lot yet.

I still miss Terellion so much. I think about him a lot. I bet he could make the cake here with the cream inside and it would be so good, not old and stale like the ones they have. I tried to conjure some, but it’s hard to imagine what it tastes like when it’s fresher because I’ve never had it fresh. I asked the goblin where the cakes are from because I thought if I went to the source I could get better cake! Unfortunately, they’re from some human town to the north at a lake or something. I guess they send some down every few days. I think they only send old ones because if they’re sent every few days, then every few days they should be fresher, but they’re not. The goblin might be lying. It’s a big cake mystery.

Maybe humans are just awful bakers.

Day 41:

Des still can’t maintain both invisibility spells for very long, but she can do it regularly now. I think she’s still putting too much into maintaining it. I will admit it is difficult and it’s based on some very advanced concepts. It took me some practice to get it to work, and a lot of practice to prolong it. She’s progressing well.

Day 45:

I miss Ter. I hope he’s ready for me to jump on him when we get home! I hold my pillow at night, but it’s not the same so I just end up crying. Quietly! There’s no privacy with the stupid curtains dividing our room up, and I don’t want the others to think something’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong. I just miss Ter a lot, and I’m sure I’ve said that enough that they don’t want to hear about it.

Des is doing well. She’s making progress. Slow progress, but progress all the same! One of her attempts today lasted for almost a minute. I think she’s getting better at figuring out how to maintain it without exhausting herself too quickly.

I caught fish and had it cooked today. While I was waiting for it to be cooked, that goblin with the dirty books tried to sell me some again. I couldn’t wait for the food to finish! I might have been interested if he had books with just guys. The just girl ones are weird. How do they even make that work? They don’t even have things. I didn’t look so I don’t know. I don’t think I really want to know.

Day 48:

It hurts! I cut my finger while fishing. Well, it’s not a real cut. It’s more like a hook got stuck in it, and I had to take it out, and the barbs on the hook made taking it out hurt even more, and now I can barely write! I went to see the goblin healer here. He lives in the tavern, or something. That’s what the other goblins said, and that’s where I found him. I think he was drunk. I’m not sure it was sanitary. If it still hurts when we get back home, I’ll have Lani look at it.

It happened because I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll be more careful from now on.

Day 52:

My finger hurts less now. I went fishing again. It wasn’t a good day to fish. I didn’t catch anything big enough to eat. We had chicken.

Des is improving on the spell. Yesterday I timed her going up to five minutes with both invisibility spells! I’ve been making her stop at five so she can have some water or gross cake. I think tomorrow we’ll try ten minutes. I’d like to get her to go up to thirty minutes with distractions. I might try adding some of those in tomorrow. I’ll just start pointing outside and saying, “Oh, look at that ship!” or “That cloud looks like cake!” and stuff like that. We’ll see if she can maintain it through that. Maybe Renner can help by moving around and making it harder for her to cast invisibility on him. He can say some things too.

Day 57:

We’ve decided to go home later. We left during the evening so it would be best for us to go back during the evening so we’re not awake all night. We plan to do a little more practice too, though I think she’s ready.

Hethurin Fairsong had been in better moods. He had tried to keep classes as normal as possible, but he knew his students were likely aware of the fact that something was up. He lacked his usual patience while teaching. He knew at least one of them noticed. Keyalenn had asked during his private lesson if everything was okay. Luckily, his second private lesson of the day was with Renner. He avoided walking through any of the hallways by teleporting just outside Renner’s practice room. He knocked.

The door opened. Renner walked back to his work table in the center of the room.

Hethurin frowned questioningly. It should have been obvious what he was asking about. “Reconstructing a portal from the teleport dust.”

“No.”

“Well, what have you had luck with?” Hethurin’s ear twitched in annoyance.

“I’m glad you asked. As you know, we have little portal dust to work with, due to it being from a teleport, not a portal. A teleport only lasts for a very brief moment, whereas a portal lasts longer and leaves more time for crystallized matter to form. I’ve come to the conclusion that it will be highly unlikely that we will be able to reconstruct a portal out of what was left behind.”

Hethurin frowned, “Well, now what?”

“That’s where I’ve had luck. There is enough that we can create a vision of where he went to. From there, we’ll be able to follow him to the next, if he doesn’t use the spell to garble his words again, that is. I do suspect that wherever he went, it’s warded, but you should be able to undo it enough for us to see even though we’re not going there ourselves.”

Hethurin nodded, “Will it be the same as before? I’ll have to stop casting the spell to take us to the vision to undo the ward first?”

He conjured a glowing orb as Renner covered the windows. He let it fade again as Renner joined him at the table. He cast the spell.

The vision started to appear, but stopped mid-way as Hethurin began casting spells to gently unravel a ward protecting the timeline they were going to visit. It had almost reverted back to nothingness by the time Hethurin cast the final spell and gently pushed through the ward.

They were in Silvermoon, but not really. It was just a vision. The room they had arrived in was empty. Hethurin peeked out into the street from the window. The were on the second floor of a building. Elves walking in the street below seemed slow and lethargic. Two of them looked up, pointing to something at the end of the street. Hethurin couldn’t see what they were looking at, but he did notice their eyes. One had blue eyes. The other had the slightest hint of a green glow. Hethurin searched for another looking up enough to see his eyes, and upon seeing a third elf’s eyes, he stepped back from the window. The third had more than a hint of green. “Renner?”

“I know. The Sunwell has been destroyed. He brought him here to change his eyes, don’t you think?”

Hethurin frowned and nodded. “But where are they now?”

“Gone.”

“How do you know?”

“The portal is a good indication.” Renner pointed to the portal in the next room.

“Oh, I hadn’t looked there yet.” Hethurin walked to the other room, and looked at the portal. There was no way of telling where it went by looking at it, and since they weren’t really there they couldn’t gather the dust from it. “What do we do now?”

“Do you know where in Silvermoon we are?”

“Not from inside.” Hethurin said and cast a spell to switch the vision to outside in the street below. “We’re near the market, but does that matter if we don’t know which timeline we’re in?”

Renner smiled at Hethurin, “Luckily, I know your timeline when I see it. He didn’t switch timelines this time, just time. If we go to the same building in your past, we can collect the portal dust. Then we’ll be able to follow him.”

“You can just tell the timeline just like that?”

Renner nodded, “When it’s one I’m familiar with, yes. You’ll learn as well, I hope. End this vision. We’ll go now to get the dust, so that we’ll be able to reconstruct the portal for next time.”

Hethurin Fairsong knocked on the door to the small study on the northern side of the house. It was next to the second classroom, which had been used today for fire magic lessons. He hoped he wasn’t too late. He smiled as a voice called out from inside the room, “Enter!”. He was still here. He opened the door.

Aeramin sat at the desk in the room, with some papers spread out before him. He glanced up as Hethurin walked in and sat in one of the chairs at the other side of the desk.

“Did you give them a test today?” Hethurin asked.

“No, I’m trying to catch up on the work I gave them to do before leaving.”

“Oh. Do you have time to talk? I was hoping to catch you before you went back to Shattrath.”

Aeramin stacked the papers neatly and put them to the side. “I can take the work back with me to go over this weekend. What is it?”

“I need papers.”

“Papers?”

“You know, identity papers.”

“Did you lose yours?”

“No, I need them for someone else.”

“Who?”

Hethurin paused, not sure how to explain it. He decided to go with the truth. “My brother.”

Aeramin’s brow raised, “You want papers to make it look like someone is your brother?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. He needs to be my son on the papers, but he’s really my brother.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, and it’s true!” Hethurin could tell from the look on Aeramin’s face that he had his doubts. “Look, okay. I’ll tell you everything. I’ve been studying chronomancy, and–”

“No. They do care. Where do you think I’m learning it from? Now let me finish telling you what happened.”

Aeramin nodded.

“So I’m learning chronomancy, and part of my practice is viewing other timelines. In some of those timelines, I’m also learning chronomancy there, so there’s a few mages in other timelines who are me and can do the things that I can do.”

“Okay, so your ‘brother’ is one of these mages, but from another timeline?”

“Actually, no.” Hethurin frowned, “He’s from this timeline, and he’s not a mage. He really is my actual, real brother. He was supposed to die, like everyone thought he did. What happened was, one of my alternate selves was intent on kidnapping him. He went to one of the other timelines first, but he was too late and the baby was already dead. He took that baby and left it in our timeline when he took my brother.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m working with my teacher to find out. In the meantime, Vaildor needs papers here so that Lani can adopt him and he can go to school. If you could somehow get records made that would be great too.”

“I don’t think it’s going to matter if he has papers or not. No one will believe you’re his father if he’s older than you.”

Hethurin sighed, “He’s supposed to be older, but he’s not. He’s in the right timeline now, but not the right time. There’s not much to be done about that though. If we take him back to his time, he’ll have no one to take care of him, unless my parents accept him, but then that means I might not be born, then I can’t take him back. That would make a really bad time anomaly, and we don’t want to do that. Anyway, we’re not sure how old he is, but he can’t be over twenty.”

“Okay, so if you’re his father, who should I put down as being his mother?”

“Oh, maybe someone who died recently and didn’t have any family, or someone who doesn’t want him, or something. Can you make someone up?”

“I’d rather no one questions the authenticity of the papers. If your sister wants to adopt him, she might want to check up on his mother’s family. I don’t think making someone up is a good solution.”

“Well, I already made up a girl who I met in the library. I didn’t get her name. I told Lani that she told me that she was sick and dying.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I assume you’ll be paying for them?”

Hethurin handed Aeramin a decent sized pouch of gold coins. “Thank you so much. Now, about that thing in the stable. Do you have time now to go take a look at it?”